Little San Marino still remembers the night it put an early scare into England's World Cup hopes

For 20 years, Giorgio Leoni has been talking about the most famous eight seconds in San Marino's soccer history—those eight seconds after kickoff when the tiny republic stocked with amateur players took a 1-0 lead over England.

San Marino ultimately lost the game 7-1. But that's not why Leoni, the side's then-manager, still has the yellowing newspaper clippings from the next morning. Or why the game stands out in the annals of a team that is currently ranked last in the world alongside Bhutan and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

"These are memories that make you think that you never have to give up, that sooner or later there will be one day that we will get a very good result," he said. "Who knows when, but it will come."

Chances are it won't be Friday night, when England and San Marino meet again in another World Cup qualifying match. Bookmaker William Hill has the odds of San Marino beating England at 125/1. For reference, that would put a Sammarinese victory somewhere between the odds of the Oakland Raiders' winning next year's Super Bowl (100/1) and Prince William deciding to name his unborn child Chardonnay (1,000/1).

A San Marino upset was no more likely in 1993. On that night, when England needed to win by seven and have another opponent lose to even have a chance of qualifying for the 1994 World Cup, San Marino kicked off and worked the ball in the direction of its forward, Davide Gualtieri. But the final through ball should have been dealt with. Instead, defender Stuart Pearce tried to play it weakly back to his goalkeeper and tapped it into Gualtieri's path.

Gualtieri, now a computer salesman, slotted it home.

The goal came so quickly that in the radio commentary box, one English announcer was still naming the broadcast's sponsor. He famously finished his sentence with, "and England are one down."

But even then, after a moment of pure joy combined with disbelief, Leoni couldn't convince himself that an upset was brewing. Was his team really going to defend a lead for the remaining 89 minutes and 52 seconds?

"It was one of those things where you think, 'OK, now we can concede 10 goals,' " said Leoni. "But we scored one amazing one, against England no less, which was and continues to be an incredible team."

The goal is high on the short list of San Marino's soccer highlights, right up there with a 0-0 draw against Turkey, a 1-0 loss against Poland, and its most recent victory—a 1-0 win over similarly unfortunate Liechtenstein nine years ago. Its career record goal scorer is Andy Selva, who has eight to his credit. And its most recent goal was this past August in a 3-2 loss to Malta.

So success is a relative thing, gauged by margins of defeat. That it took England 35 minutes to open the scoring when the sides met at Wembley Stadium in October is considered a defensive achievement.

"I've had a quick check and they still haven't scored against anybody for a while, so if someone is going to concede against them, I hope it isn't me," England goalkeeper Joe Hart told reporters this week.

For other European teams visiting the country, landlocked just inside Italy's Adriatic Coast, the main challenge is to avoid speaking too frankly about facing a team of amateurs.

"Sometimes it's very disrespectful to write off San Marino," England manager Roy Hodgson said Thursday. "OK, they're a small country and they haven't been able to produce results like the Brazils and the Germanys. But considering the size of the country, they've done remarkably well."

Except the last time San Marino wasn't ranked 207th in the world was last fall, when it briefly rose into a four-way tie for 206th, which was still last place. It was during Leoni's tenure that San Marino achieved its highest world ranking of the past 20 years, reaching the rare heights of 118 in September 1993 just ahead of Burkina Faso and Bangladesh.

Leoni said that San Marino prided itself on avoiding the passport games played by so many other countries. Sammarinese citizenship is hard to come by for people without Sammarinese parents. And besides, the federation isn't looking for naturalized Brazilians. Options, then, are limited.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the population of San Marino in 2012 was just over 32,000. And of those, only 8,267 were men age 15 to 54. All of which leaves the pool of available players, according to a Sammarinese federation spokesman, at roughly 35 to 40. That makes the task of putting together the San Marino national side about as difficult as picking a team to compete in World Cup qualifiers from the men in your office.

And if you work in San Marino, the players could very well be men from your office. The team is made up almost entirely of people with regular day jobs who get together to practice about three times a week. Their best player, a rare professional, is midfielder Mirko Palazzi. He turns out for nearby Rimini in the fourth tier of Italian soccer.

"It would really take a lot of lucky circumstances for us to have a positive result," Leoni said. "First your goalkeeper must be in the mood for miracles. Then, better have your opponent hit the post three or four times."

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